Space Dust, The Moon's Surface, and the Age of the Cosmos

A central claim of scientific
creationism is "a relatively recent creation of the earth and the universe."
However, creationist scientists are very difficult to pin down about just how
old the earth is. Specific answers tend to get them in trouble because skeptics
can then check the claim against facts. Inevitably, this leads to the
creationist claim being exposed as wrong or even foolish.

For example,
anyone who cares to do so can add 4004 BC to 1983 , and find that Archbishop
Ussher's biblical age for the universe is 5987 years. Some quick addition of the
begats in Genesis shows that Noah's flood came 1646 years after the creation.
That adds up to 2348 BC, or 4331 years ago. If Henry Morris (1980) is right that
"all true facts of nature" support Biblical creationism, then the student of
history would expect to find signs that some of the Egyptian pyramids had been
inundated. Rather than confront fact after fact that refutes their deeply held
beliefs, scientific creationists simply attack the theory of evolution and make
vague claims that their own "model" is supported by abundant scientific
evidence.

Often, the creationist claim of "a relatively recent creation"
is so imprecise that it could mean any time ranging from 5987 years to tens of
millions of years ago. This claim is usually "supported" by attacking the
validity of radiometric and other dating techniques (Morris, 1974, pp. 131-169;
Slusher, 1981). The total lack of substance in these attacks has been shown in
devastating critiques by Dalrymple and Brush.

The creationist response is
very simplewhen pushed, evade the question by stating that the evidence is not
relevant because a young earth is optional to the creation model anyway (Hahn,
1982). Otherwise, ignore the critics and continue to claim that the "true facts
of nature" show the earth to be quite young. Stick with complex subjects such as
radiometric dating, magnetic field decay, sun shrinkage, tidal slowing of the
earth's spin rate, etc. Dazzle the uninitiated with some calculations.
Creationists get away with this chicanery because their intended audience is
unlikely to check those calculations and the assumptions behind
them.

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Cosmic
Dust

Occasionally, however, creationists pick an example that seems
safely complex, but is actually easy to understand even without elaborate
calculations. One such example is the cosmic dust argument. Creationists have
calculated that the amount of cosmic dust on the moon could have accumulated in
less than ten thousand years. In fact, they claim, had dust been accumulating
for billions of years, it would be hundreds or even thousands of feet thick and
the lunar landing space craft would have sunk out of sight. To creationists, the
survival of moon landers proves that the moon, and the rest of the universe,
must be young. A closer look at this claim and subsequent statements about it
provides some insight into how creationist "science" is done.

Cosmic dust
calculations abound in creationist literature. In Scientific Creationism
(pp. 151-152), the authors present numbers to show that the earth and moon should
have a thick layer of dust if they were 4.5 billion years old. Kofahl and
Segraves (p. 146), Whitcomb and DeYoung (pp. 94-95), Slusher
(1980, p. 41), and Hahn (pp. 553-555) all repeat the same argument
that the moon should have accumulated thick layers of dust in 4.5 billion
years and that the 65 millimeters (2½ inches)
actually there could have accumulated in less than ten thousand
years.

Now, any such calculations must be based on data. In this case, the
creationist's data source is a 1960 Scientific American article by H.
Pettersson. Working before we had actual space dust measurements from
satellites, Pettersson measured atmospheric dust filtered from the air atop
Mauna Loa in Hawaii and then attempted to estimate how much of that dust came
from space. He knew that only a tiny fraction of the dust he collected came from
space. To estimate how much meteoritic dust there was, Pettersson used the fact
that nickel is much rarer in terrestrial dust than in meteorites. He made
reasonable assumptions that meteorites averaged about 2.5% nickel and
that all the nickel in his dust samples came from meteors. Then he simply
weighed the nickel in his samples and divided by .025 to get the total
weight of space dust in the volume of air that passed through his filters. With
an uncertain assumption about how fast dust settled out of the atmosphere,
Pettersson figured that 14 million tons of space dust settled on earth
each year. Because this figure was much higher than estimates based on other
data, Pettersson said five million tons per year was plausible. Like any
reputable scientist, he presented his assumptions and warned that unknowns made
his estimate very speculative.

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Astrophysicists were aware of Pettersson's
estimate and there was some speculation that space craft sent to the moon might
sink into a thick layer of fine dust. None were terribly surprised when that did
not happen. Nevertheless, creationists took Pettersson's 14 million ton
estimate as fact, plugged it into their equations and "proved" that the
cosmos was less than 10,000 years old. Kofahl and Segraves (p. 146) even stated
that astronomers were dismayed because the moon did not have the expected thick
dust layer and that "there is a noticeable silence on this matter in current
discussions of moon data." A similar comment appears in Scientific
Creationism (p. 152). Now we have another standard creationist charge; that
evolutionists and their allies suppress evidence unfavorable to evolution. The
facts tell a different story.

Astrophysicists are vitally interested in
cosmic dust calculations because micrometeorites are potentially hazardous to
satellites and other space craft. Therefore, Pettersson's method for determining
cosmic dust abundance in the earth's vicinity is only one of many different
indirect methods being used. Others include zodiacal light refraction,
photographic recording of light streaks from meteors entering the atmosphere,
and measurement of concentrations in atmospheric dust, deep-sea bottom
sediments, and Antarctic ice cores of elements, such as iridium and osmium, that
are rare on earth but common in some meteors.

One of the earliest
priorities of the space program was to make direct measurements of particulates
in space in order to calibrate the indirect methods. By 1968, a year before the
first man stepped onto the moon, a wide variety of data was available, and, in
1972, J. S. Dohnanyi reviewed an extensive literature on space dust influx.
Uncertainties still existed, but those making indirect estimates then had to
make many fewer assumptions than Pettersson did.

Dohnanyi discusses
several of these estimates. The highest of these, iridium and osmium
concentrations in deep-sea sediments, would yield about ½ meter (19 inches) of
dust on earth in 4.5 billion years. A recent estimate by Ganapathy, based on
iridium in ice cores, is that 400 thousand tons of space dust fall on the earth
each year. That is 1/35th of Pettersson's highest estimate, or 1.6 meters (5.2
feet) of dust in 5 billion years instead of the 55.5 meters (182 feet)
calculated by a creationist in Scientific Creationism (p. 152).

In
contrast with the uncertainties associated with earth-based methods of
estimating cosmic dust concentration, satellites in space can measure it
directly. Using data from dust penetration of satellites, Dohnanyi gave the
following direct measurements of cosmic dust influx rates: To the earth 4 x
10-9 grams/per square centimeter (22.6 thousand tons) per year, and
to the moon 2 x 10-9 grams per square centimeter (11.3 thousand tons)
per year. Assuming a constant influx rate (even though it certainly wasn't) the
earth would collect a layer of dust only 60 millimeters (2.4 inches) thick in
4.5 billion years and the moon half that. This does not take into account the
contribution to earth of larger meteoroids, such as the Tunguska object
(Ganapathy), that break up on entering the atmosphere. Given the
extreme irregularity of such
objects, both in size and arrival, the actual dust influx certainly lies
somewhere between 23 thousand and 400 thousand tons per year.

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None
of these figures is in any way inconsistent with the concentrations of cobalt,
nickel, osmium or iridium in the earth's crust (nor, as he pointed out, was
Pettersson's estimate), in spite of the numerical shenanigans and semantic
trickery creationists use (e.g., Morris, 1974, p. 152-3) to make their
claim that the facts can be explained only if the earth is no more than a few
thousand years old. Once again, a close look at the facts shows that
creationists are wrong.

That the claim of a conspiracy of silence among
supporters of evolution is a patent falsehood should be apparent to all by now.
A glance at the references cited by Dohnanyi and Ganapathy shows clearly that,
far from being suppressed, these data and the calculations made from them were
available and widely discussed in the open scientific literature for at least
six years before the creationists began publishing their claim that moon dust
calculations provide scientific evidence supporting "a relatively recent
creation." The only suppression of real moon dust data seems to be in
creationist literature. As far as the creationist's followers know, Pettersson's
1960 article still represents the latest word on the subject. One would
think that after data had been available for at least 15 years, any
creationists doing research on a subject so important to them would surely have
run across the information, especially now that computer searches of the
literature are cheap and accessible to all. Amazingly, in the June 1983 ICR Impact article, Bliss proffers cosmic dust (and several other
discredited ideas) as support for creationism, proving mainly the author's
ignorance of the "true facts of nature."

The Surface of the Moon

The
antiquity of the solar system should be obvious to anyone who has thought about
the pictures and moon rocks brought back by the Apollo program. Before anyone
had actually been to the moon's surface, scientists had predicted how it should
look. The moon has no atmosphere and no free water, therefore it has no weather.
Its surface is cratered, implying volcanic activity and meteorite impacts.
Without weather, there could be no erosion, so any mountains, lava formations,
and impact debris should remain forever as sharp and jagged as the day they were
formed. Based on this reasoning, the famous paintings produced in the 1940's and 50's by Chesley Bonestell, which were based on the best
scientific guesses of the moon's appearance at the time, all showed extremely
jagged mountains, rocks and craters.

Figure 1 is an artist's rendition of
how the scene in the lunar highlands photographed by the astronauts of Apollo 17
was originally expected to look. Figure 2 is how it actually looked. The boulder is well rounded, as
are the mountains and the crater edges. Without weather, what could account for
such profound erosion?

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Figure 1: Artist's rendition of
how Apollo 13 site in lunar highlands should have appeared according to best information available before actual pictures from the surface were available. With no atmosphere, and hence no weather to erode them, all rocks, craters, and lava formations would remain unaltered indefinitely.

Figure 2: Artist's drawing from Apollo 13 photograph of scene in figure 1. Note that all exposed surfaces have been worn and rounded by erosion. Exposed surfaces of the boulder in the foreground have a substantial cover of dirt.

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Figure 3: NASA moon rock 14310. This rock was found partially buried on the moon's surface where it had lain since being broken off a larger rock. The surfaces that were buried are angular and unmarked. The exposed surface, in contrast, is covered with many small pits that were made by small space dust particles striking at speeds up to 10 kilometers per second (11,000 miles per hour). This slow process, which has rounded the exposed surface, accounts for nearly all lunar erosion. The rock is about 19 centimeters (71/2 inches) wide.

Examination of moon rocks (fig. 3) provides the
answer. The rock surfaces that were buried are sharp and angular, as expected,
but all exposed surfaces are rounded off and severely pitted. The rock obviously
has been struck by many small, high velocity objects. We know now that these
objects are micro meteoroids, interplanetary dust grains averaging between
10-8 and 10-14 grams each. Ninety-five percent of these
particles hit the surface at speeds over 10 kilometers per second (about 11,000
miles per hour), producing impact craters ranging from 1 micrometer to 1
millimeter (1/25,000 to 1/25 inch) in diameter.

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McDonnell and Ashworth calculate
that circular targets between
1 millimeter and 10 meters in diameter would be eroded away at one to three
billionths of a meter per year, assuming they weren't hit by micrometeoroids
large enough to shatter them. At that rate, a surface that had all debris
removed would be worn down 13.5 meters (44.3 feet) in 4.5 billion years. (They
are not worn down that much because the debris is not removed. Subsequent
impacts merely grind the surface material finer and finer.) Therefore, a
one-inch deep footprint on the moon would still be detectable after eight
million years!

Even if this calculation of the erosion rate were off by
one or two orders of magnitude, an enormous time span was necessary for the
moon's surface to become so profoundly eroded. If the moon were only ten
thousand years old, only 30 micrometers (1.2 millionths of an inch) would have
eroded away. The astronauts might have been able to detect the resulting dust
coat with a clean white glove, but it wouldn't have been easy.

In many
places on the moon, sediment-like layers are visible. These were not deposited
by water. Instead, they are layers of ejecta from the large meteroids that made
craters a few meters to many kilometers in diameter. The slow bombardment from
space then slowly broke the top rocks of the resulting layer of debris into
finer and finer pieces. After a few tens to hundreds of millions of years,
another large meteoroid hit and deposited another layer of newly broken rock
atop this one and the erosion process repeated. This process is illustrated in
an article by Eglinton and others and accounts nicely for the layered appearance
of some lunar formations.

Regarding the moon, then, the "true facts of
nature" are that the surface is highly eroded, that this erosion was caused by
micrometeoroid bombardment, and that micrometeoroids (i.e., space dust) rain
down onto the moon very slowly. We now need to examine how well these facts are
explained by the mechanisms that creationist scientists offer in explaining
earth and moon geology.

One possible mechanism would be decay in
accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. A moment's reflection should
cause any rational person to realize how inadequate this is. Somehow the moon's
mountains, with no water or weather, would have to erode away many times faster
than mountains on the earth, where the measurable effects of water and weather
are by far the most important agents of erosion. Degeneration of this sort also
would not produce sediment-like layers. Mountains crumbling rapidly would leave
jumbled masses of debris rather than neat layers.

Creationists are likely
to argue that establishment scientists' arguments are based upon
uniformitarianism, the assumption that past processes were the same as the
natural processes operating today. The creationist alternative is catastrophism.
On earth, that means Noah's flood. In space, Morris (1972, pp. 66-77) isn't
quite sure what was involved but he implies that the
battered appearance of the moon
and many other bodies in the solar system may be the result of "continuing
cosmic warfare" between Michael and his angels and the minions of
Satan.

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In evaluating this idea, consider that no one has ever reported
seeing the moon enveloped in the huge dust cloud that would have to accompany
such violence. That restricts the catastrophe to the short period creationists
allow between creation and the beginning of written history, perhaps even to the
year of Noah's flood (Whitcomb and DeYoung, p. 97). The mind boggles at trying
to imagine what kind of monumental cosmic sandblaster could have reduced the
moon's mountains to rounded hills in only a few years while leaving successive
layers intact. One has to wonder why so much energy directed at the moon in such
a short time didn't melt the surface instead of grinding it to powder. Another
problem is that the varying states of erosion of small craters on the moon
implies a prolonged, rather than episodic, bombardment. By invoking the
miraculous, creationists avoid having to worry about such problems.

In
short, creationist catastrophism is not well supported by the facts. It is
nothing more than a set of miracles offered up in place of a simple, natural
explanation that accords very well with the moon's features and with actual
measurements of space dust.

Of course, as a last resort, creationists can
always fall back on their old crutch, the omphalos argument (Price, 1980), and claim that the moon was created as it is, dust, impact craters, eroded
surfaces and all. Such miracles may satisfy their need to find some kind of
support for a cherished belief, but they fall outside the province of science
and require rejection of a natural explanation that fits the "true facts of
nature" beautifully. So, in spite of creationist's wish otherwise, there is no
real support for scientific creationism on the moon or anywhere
else.

Acknowledgements

I thank William M. Thwaites and G. Brent
Dalrymple for their suggestions for improving the manuscript. Moon rock photo
courtesy of NASA.